The concept of social stratification introduced. Stratification in social science - what is it? Definition, types, criteria, examples of stratification

10.10.2019

If we look at the social structure of society as a complex of social groups that are strikingly different from each other, sociologists are obliged to answer the question of how to distinguish these groups from each other. Stratification studies this issue in social science. This is a system of verified features, according to which an individual is assigned to a certain group. It is about this social phenomenon that we will talk today.

Theory of stratification

In order to be able to distinguish between social groups, as well as to study them, the theory of social stratification was developed in the early 40s of the twentieth century. T. Parsons, R. Merton, K. Davis, W. Moore worked on its creation. Sociologists assured that stratification in social science is a process that was provoked by the spread of executable functions necessary for the life of society. According to them, due to social stratification in society, it is possible to distinguish ordered layers that were formed on the basis of important features.

It should also not be forgotten that the approach of social stratification is both a method and methodology for studying the social structure of society. It is based on the principles:

Mandatory research of all public spending.
The need for application in comparative analysis the same criteria.
Applying a sufficient number of criteria that will allow for a deep analysis of the social stratum.

About stratification

The concept of "stratification" was taken from geology by Pitirim Sorokin. In social science, stratification is a process of social reproduction, during which all layers, classes, castes and groups are unequal, therefore they are forced to be placed in a hierarchical order. In other words, social stratification is the division of society into different groups of people who are united according to the same criteria. The main criteria for stratification in social science are the level of income, access to power and knowledge, the nature of work, and leisure activities.

Thus, economic, professional and political stratification are distinguished. But that's not all, stratification in social science is a source that allows you to determine the stable elements of the social structure. During historical development three types of stratification were formed.

castes

One of these types are castes. Literally translated from Portuguese, this word means "origin". That is, castes are understood as closed groups that are connected by origin and status. To become a member of this association, you need to be born in it, moreover, there is no possibility for representatives of different castes to marry. Simply put, the caste system is very limited, this is a place for those who are just lucky.

The most famous caste system is considered to be an example of stratification in India. According to legend, society was originally divided into 4 varnas, which were created from different parts bodies representing humans. So, the “mouths” of the society were brahmins (priests and scholars). The "hands" were kshatriyas (leaders and soldiers). The role of the "torso" was played by vaishyas (merchants and villagers), and the "feet" were considered sudras (dependent persons).

Estates

Another type of stratification in social science is called "estate". This is a special group of people whose rules of conduct, duties and rights are inherited. In contrast to the caste system, it is easier to become part of a certain estate, since this is a conscious choice of a person, and not the result of a fatal combination of circumstances. In the countries of Europe of the 18th-19th centuries, the following system of estates existed:

Nobility - groups of people with special privileges, they were usually given different titles, such as duke, baron, prince, etc.
Clergy - if you exclude the priests, then all the rest who served the church were considered clergy. In turn, it was divided into two types: "black" - all the monastic brethren, "white" - non-monastic people who remained faithful to church dogmas.
Merchants - a cohort of people engaged in trade.
Peasantry - people who have the basis labor activity was farming and agricultural labor.
Philistinism - groups of people who live in cities, are engaged in crafts, trade or are in the service.

Classes

The definition of stratification in social science is impossible without the concept of "class". By class is meant a group of people that is distinguished by freedom of access to property. For the first time such a concept was introduced into social science by Karl Marx, he said that the position of an individual in society is determined by his access to material goods. This is how class disparities arose. If we look at specific historical examples, then only two classes were defined in the slave-owning community: slaves and their masters. The main strata of feudal society were the feudal lords and the peasants dependent on them.

However, in modern sociological sciences, classes are groups of individuals who are similar according to the criteria of political, economic, and socio-cultural affiliation. Therefore, in every modern society we can distinguish:

Upper class (elite or rich people).
Middle class (professionals in their field, employees, workers with qualifications).
Lower class (unskilled workers, marginalized).
Underclass (people at the very "bottom" of the system).

strata

Thus, we can say that the units of social stratification are strata - groups of people who are united according to a certain attribute. The concept of "stratum" is the most universal term that can be used to characterize both large classes of people and small groups that are united according to one criterion.

As for examples of stratification in social science, these can be representatives of the elite and the masses. As Pareto said, in every society there are 20% of the elite - people who lead the social order and prevent the emergence of anarchy. And 80% of the so-called mass - ordinary people who do not have access to public authority.

Stratification is the criterion that is an indicator of the inequality that prevails in society. The division into groups shows how different conditions people live in society. They have different potential and access to social benefits. But in spite of everything, it is only through stratification that a detailed characterization of the social structure can be obtained.

Mobility

In social science, social stratification and mobility are inextricably linked concepts. Mobility refers to dynamic change. As Pitirim Sorokin said: “Social mobility is the process of moving an individual or another object (norm, value) to a different social plane.”

For example, a person can change his position in society, and at the same time begin to belong to another class. good example quality social mobility can be a trite story about how a poor guy became a millionaire.

Like social stratification, mobility has its varieties. First of all, vertical and horizontal mobility are distinguished.

Vertical mobility

Vertical mobility is a process that is characterized by changes that can be described as " better than that what was" or " worse than that, what happened". For example, a person received a promotion at work, a salary increase, or a higher education. These are positive changes, which are called upward mobility.

An example of downward mobility would be a dismissal, a demotion, or any other situation that changes circumstances for the worse.

Horizontal mobility

In addition to vertical mobility, there is also horizontal dynamics. If in the first case a person had the opportunity to move within his stratum, then in this case he moves exclusively within his own stratum.

For example, a programmer changed his job and moved to another city. He still belongs to the middle class of the population, he just changed his territorial position. Or if a person changes the specifics of work without a significant increase in earnings. For example, he worked as a secretary, and became an assistant accountant. The specifics of the work seem to be different, there are more responsibilities, and the salary has not changed significantly. Therefore, we can say that mobility is considered horizontal if a person changes his social group to the one located on the same level.

Intergenerational and intragenerational mobility

This concept is more common in the countries of America, in particular in the States, where the public is of the opinion that the next generation should live better than the previous one. And anarchy is understood not as anarchy, which Durkheim spoke of, but as a discrepancy between needs and resources.

Intergenerational mobility is determined by the process in which a child occupies a better or worse position in society than his parents. For example, if the parents were low-skilled workers and their child became a scientist, this is positive intergenerational mobility.

Intragenerational mobility is determined by the change in social status throughout the life span, regardless of the achievements of the parents.

Groups and people

Exploring the concepts of social mobility and stratification, it is difficult not to note such definitions as individual and group dynamics.

Group mobility deserves special attention - a dynamic process in which an entire estate, caste or class changes its position in society. For example, after the collapse of the USSR, when many factories stopped, engineers became unclaimed. A whole class of engineers was forced to change their specialization in a short time. This type of mobility is characteristic feature societies that are in a state of total change.

With individual mobility, each person independently changes his belonging to a particular stratum.

findings

In general, studies show that social mobility is influenced by the political regime, the stages of modernization, and the socio-economic situation in the society. As well as the characteristics of the individual himself: his education, character, etc.

But what is stratification in social science? In simple words It is the division of society into rich and poor. And only then these rich and poor can be divided into strata with different characteristics. The social structure in any society is the main criterion that helps the society to evolve. Due to which strata prevail in a particular society, it is possible to determine which development strategy suits it best.

Human society is uneven: it has different groups, layers, or in other words - strata. This division of people is called the social stratification of society. Let's try to briefly study this concept.

Definition

In essence, social stratification has a similar meaning to the social stratification of society. Both of these concepts denote differentiation, the division of people into different groups. For example, rich and poor.

The stratification carries the significance of the formation of layers, groups in society. The only difference is that the concept of stratification is fixed in science, and the term "social stratification" is more used in everyday speech.

Origin of the term

The word "stratification" was originally used by geologists. It represents the layers various breeds: fertile layer, clay, sand and so on. Then this concept was transferred to sociological science. This is how the concept of horizontal social stratification appeared, and now we represent human society, like the structure of the Earth, in the form of layers.

The division into strata occurs according to the following criteria: income, power, prestige, level of education. That is, society is divided into groups on the following grounds: by income level, by the ability to manage other people, by education level and by prestige.

Classes

Large, including many representatives of the strata are called classes, which are subdivided into layers. For example, the class of the rich is divided into upper and lower (Depending on income - very large and smaller).

The history of the emergence of social stratification

The theory of social stratification has come a long way in its development, since this phenomenon has a fairly long history:

In primitive society, there was practically no stratification, since inequality had not yet acquired pronounced forms;
With the complication of society, castes, estates, and then classes began to arise;
In Europe, in the 17th-19th centuries, classes replaced the feudal-estate society. For a long time there was a class hierarchy: the clergy, the nobility, the peasantry. But society does not stand still. Industry developed, new professions appeared, representatives of which no longer fit into the former estates. Workers, entrepreneurs were not satisfied with this situation, which led to uprisings and even revolutions (for example, in England and France). As a result of these events, classes appeared.

In the post-industrial and contemporary period, the concept of social stratification has not lost its significance, as the structure of society continues to become more complex.

Ways to solve the problem

Features of social stratification in modern Russia, the severity of this problem causes disputes about the origin and ways to solve it :

Someone believes that social inequality is inevitable, it exists in any society: there are especially important functions that are performed by the most talented people. They are provided with rare valuable benefits;
Others believe that stratification in society is unfair, as some people appropriate more goods for themselves at the expense of others. Which means it must be destroyed.

Feature of social stratification

One of the signs and features of social stratification is that a person can change his roles, move around. This phenomenon is called social mobility. She has two varieties :

Horizontal : change of position in the same stratum (For example, the director of an oil company became the director of a large bank)
vertical : moving up the social ladder, both up and down (For example, a history teacher became a school principal - ascent, or a teacher lost his job and became unemployed - a decrease in status

What have we learned?

social stratification society is its division into separate groups. It has special criteria such as power, income and prestige. The differentiation of society appeared long ago and continues to exist in modern world. One of its features is social mobility, that is, the movement of people from one stratum to another.

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Introduction

Human society at all stages of its development was characterized by inequality. Structured inequalities between different groups of people sociologists call stratification.

Social stratification is the differentiation of a given set of people (population) into classes in a hierarchical rank. Its basis and essence lies in the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties, the presence and absence of social values, power and influence among members of a particular community. Specific forms of social stratification are varied and numerous. However, all their diversity can be reduced to three main forms: economic, political and professional stratification. As a rule, they are all closely intertwined. Social stratification is a constant characteristic of any organized society.

In real life, the inequality of people plays a huge role. Inequality is a specific form of social differentiation, in which individual individuals, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy, have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs. Inequality is the criterion by which we can place some groups above or below others. Social structure arises from the social division of labor, and social stratification arises from the social distribution of the results of labor, i.e. social benefits.

Stratification is closely connected with the dominant system of values in society. It forms a normative scale for evaluating various types of human activity, on the basis of which people are ranked according to the degree of social prestige.

Social stratification performs a dual function: it acts as a method of identifying the strata of a given society and at the same time represents its social portrait. Social stratification is distinguished by a certain stability within a particular historical stage.

1. Stratification term

Social stratification is a central theme in sociology. It describes social inequality in society, the division of social strata by income level and lifestyle, by the presence or absence of privileges. In primitive society, inequality was insignificant, so stratification was almost absent there. In complex societies, inequality is very strong, it divided people by income, level of education, power. Castes arose, then estates, and later classes. In some societies, the transition from one social stratum (stratum) to another is prohibited; there are societies where such a transition is limited, and there are societies where it is completely allowed. Freedom of social movement (mobility) determines whether a society is closed or open.

The term "stratification" comes from geology, where it refers to the vertical arrangement of the Earth's layers. Sociology has likened the structure of society to the structure of the Earth and placed the social strata (strata) also vertically. The basis is the income ladder: the poor are on the bottom rung, the wealthy are in the middle, and the rich are at the top.

Each stratum includes only those people who have approximately the same income, power, education and prestige. The inequality of distances between statuses is the main property of stratification. The social stratification of any society includes four scales - income, education, power, prestige.

Income - the amount of money received by an individual or family for a certain period of time (month, year). Income is the amount of money received in the form of wages, pensions, allowances, alimony, fees, deductions from profits. Income is measured in rubles or dollars that an individual (individual income) or family (family income) receives during a certain period of time, say one month or a year.

Incomes are most often spent on maintaining life, but if they are very high, they accumulate and turn into wealth.

Wealth - accumulated income, i.e. amount of cash or embodied money. In the second case, they are called movable (car, yacht, securities, etc.) and immovable (house, works of art, treasures) property. Usually wealth is inherited. Inheritance can be received by both working and non-working, and only working people can receive income. In addition to them, pensioners and the unemployed have income, but the poor do not. The rich may or may not work. In both cases, they are owners because they have wealth. The main wealth of the upper class is not income, but accumulated property. The salary share is small. For the middle and lower classes, income is the main source of subsistence, since the first, if there is wealth, is insignificant, and the second does not have it at all. Wealth allows you not to work, and its absence forces you to work for the sake of wages.

Wealth and income are unevenly distributed and signify economic inequality. Sociologists interpret it as an indicator that different groups of the population have unequal life chances. They buy different quantities and different quality food, clothing, housing, etc. People who have more money eat better, live in more comfortable homes, prefer private cars to public transportation, can afford expensive vacations, and so on. But in addition to the obvious economic advantages, the wealthy have hidden privileges. The poor have shorter lives (even if they enjoy all the benefits of medicine), less educated children (even if they go to the same public schools), and so on.

Education is measured by the number of years of study at a public or private school or university. Let's say elementary School means 4 years, incomplete secondary - 9 years, complete secondary - 11, college - 4 years, university - 5 years, graduate school - 3 years, doctoral studies - 3 years. Thus, a professor has more than 20 years of formal education behind him, and a plumber may not have even eight.

Power is measured by the number of people who are affected by the decision you make (power is the ability to impose your will or decisions on other people, regardless of their desire).

The essence of power is the ability to impose one's will against the will of others. In a complex society, power is institutionalized; protected by laws and tradition, surrounded by privileges and wide access to social benefits, allows you to make decisions that are vital for society, including laws that, as a rule, are beneficial to the upper class. In all societies, people who hold some form of power—political, economic, or religious—make up an institutionalized elite. It represents the domestic and foreign policy of the state, directing it in a direction that is beneficial to itself, which other classes are deprived of.

Three scales of stratification - income, education and power - have quite objective units of measurement: dollars. Years, people. Prestige is outside this range, as it is a subjective indicator.

Prestige is the respect that a particular profession, position, occupation enjoys in public opinion. The profession of a lawyer is more prestigious than the profession of a steelworker or a plumber. The position of president of a commercial bank is more prestigious than that of a cashier. All professions, occupations and positions that exist in a given society can be placed from top to bottom on the ladder of professional prestige. As a rule, professional prestige is determined by us intuitively, approximately.

2. Systems of social stratification

Regardless of the forms that social stratification takes, its existence is universal. Four main systems of social stratification are known: slavery, castes, clans and classes.

Slavery is an economic, social and legal form of enslavement of people, bordering on complete lack of rights and an extreme degree of inequality. An essential feature of slavery is the possession of some people by others.

Usually point to three causes of slavery. First, a debt obligation, when a person who was unable to pay his debts fell into slavery to his creditor. Secondly, the violation of laws, when the execution of a murderer or a robber was replaced by slavery, i.e. the culprit was handed over to the affected family as compensation for the grief or damage caused. Thirdly, war, raids, conquest, when one group of people conquered another and the winners used some of the captives as slaves.

conditions of slavery. Conditions of slavery and slaveholding varied significantly in different regions of the world. In some countries, slavery was a temporary condition of a person: having worked for his master for the allotted time, the slave became free and had the right to return to his homeland.

General characteristics of slavery. Although slaveholding practices varied in different regions and in different eras, but regardless of whether slavery was the result of an unpaid debt, punishment, military captivity or racial prejudice; whether it was permanent or temporary; hereditary or not, the slave was still the property of another person, and the system of laws secured the status of a slave. Slavery served as the main distinction between people, clearly indicating which person is free (and legally receives certain privileges) and which is a slave (without privileges).

Slavery has historically evolved. There are two forms of it:

Patriarchal slavery - the slave had all the rights of the youngest family member: he lived in the same house with the owners, participated in public life, married the free; it was forbidden to kill him;

Classical slavery - the slave lived in separate room, did not participate in anything, did not enter into marriage and did not have a family, he was considered the property of the owner.

Slavery is the only form of social relations in history when one person acts as the property of another, and when the lower stratum is deprived of all rights and freedoms.

Caste - called a social group (stratum), membership in which a person owes solely to his birth.

The achieved status is not able to change the place of the individual in this system. People who are born into a low-status group will always have this status, no matter what they personally manage to achieve in life.

Societies that are characterized by this form of stratification strive for a clear preservation of the boundaries between castes, therefore endogamy is practiced here - marriages within their own group - and there is a ban on intergroup marriages. To prevent inter-caste contact, such societies develop complex rules regarding ritual purity, according to which it is considered that communication with members of the lower castes defiles the higher caste.

A clan is a clan or a kindred group connected by economic and social ties.

The clan system is typical of agrarian societies. In such a system, each individual is connected to a vast social network relatives - clan. The clan is something like a very extended family and has similar features: if the clan has a high status, the individual belonging to this clan has the same status; all funds belonging to the clan, whether meager or rich, belong equally to each member of the clan; loyalty to the clan is a lifelong obligation of each of its members.

Clans are also reminiscent of castes: belonging to a clan is determined by birth and is lifelong. However, unlike castes, marriages between different clans are quite allowed; they can even be used to create and strengthen alliances between clans, since the obligations that marriage imposes on spouses' relatives can unite members of two clans. The processes of industrialization and urbanization turn clans into more fluid groups, eventually replacing clans with social classes.

Clans especially rally in times of danger, as the following example shows.

A class is a large social group of people who do not own the means of production, occupying a certain place in the system of social division of labor and characterized by a specific way of earning income.

The systems of stratification based on slavery, castes and clans are closed. The boundaries separating people are so clear and firm that they leave no room for people to move from one group to another, with the exception of marriages between members of different clans. The class system is much more open because it is based primarily on money or material possessions. Class is also determined at birth - an individual receives the status of his parents, but the social class of an individual during his life can change depending on what he managed (or failed) to achieve in life. In addition, there are no laws that determine the occupation or profession of an individual depending on birth or prohibit marriage with members of other social classes.

Consequently, the main characteristic of this system of social stratification is the relative flexibility of its boundaries. The class system leaves room for social mobility, i.e. to move up or down the social ladder. Having the potential to advance one's social position, or class, is one of the main driving forces that encourages people to study well and work hard. Of course, marital status, inherited by a person from birth, can also determine extremely unfavorable conditions that will not leave him a chance to rise too high in life, and provide the child with such privileges that it will be practically impossible for him to "slide down" the class ladder.

Whatever class typologies were invented by scientists and thinkers. The ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle were the first to propose their model.

Today sociology offers different typologies of classes.

More than half a century has passed since Lloyd Warner developed his concept of classes. Today it has been replenished with one more layer and in its final form represents a seven-point scale.

The upper - upper class includes "aristocrats by blood" who emigrated to America 200 years ago and accumulated untold wealth over many generations. They are distinguished by a special way of life, high society manners, impeccable taste and behavior.

The lower - upper class consists mainly of the "new rich", who have not yet had time to create powerful tribal clans, who have seized the highest posts in industry, business, and politics. Typical representatives are a professional basketball player or a pop star who receive tens of millions, but in a family who do not have "aristocrats by blood."

The upper-middle class consists of the petty bourgeoisie and highly paid professionals, such as big lawyers, famous doctors, actors or TV commentators. The lifestyle is approaching high society, but they still cannot afford a fashionable villa in the most expensive resorts in the world or a rare collection of art rarities.

Middle - the middle class represents the most massive stratum of a developed industrial society. It includes all well-paid employees, medium-paid professionals, in a word, people of intellectual professions, including teachers, teachers, middle managers. It is the backbone of the information society and the service sector.

The lower-middle class was made up of lower employees and skilled workers, who, by the nature and content of their work, gravitate rather not to physical, but to mental labor. A distinctive feature is a decent way of life.

The upper-lower class includes medium and low-skilled workers engaged in mass production in local factories, living in relative prosperity, but in behavior significantly different from the upper and middle class. Distinctive features: low education (usually complete and incomplete secondary, secondary specialized), passive leisure (watching TV, playing cards or dominoes), primitive entertainment, often excessive use of alcohol and non-literary vocabulary.

The lower - the lower class are the inhabitants of basements, attics, slums and other places that are not very suitable for life. They do not have any or primary education, most often they are interrupted by odd jobs or begging, they constantly feel an inferiority complex due to hopeless poverty and constant humiliation. They are usually called the "social bottom", or underclass. Most often, a number of them are recruited from chronic alcoholics, former prisoners, homeless people, etc.

The term "upper-upper class" means the upper layer of the upper class. In all two-part words, the first word denotes the stratum or layer, and the second denotes the class to which the given layer belongs. "Upper-lower class" is sometimes referred to as it is, and sometimes it is used to denote the working class.

In sociology, the criterion for attributing a person to one or another layer is not only income, but also the amount of power, the level of education and the prestige of the occupation, which involve a specific lifestyle and style of behavior. You can get a lot, but spend all the money or drink it away. Not only the arrival of money is important, but their expenditure, and this is already a way of life.

The working class in modern post-industrial society includes two layers: lower - middle and upper - lower. All knowledge workers, no matter how little they get, are never enrolled in the lower class.

The middle class is always distinguished from the working class. But the working class is distinguished from the lower class, which may include the unemployed, the unemployed, the homeless, the poor, and so on. As a rule, highly skilled workers are included not in the working class, but in the middle, but in its lowest stratum, which is filled mainly by low-skilled mental workers - employees.

Another variant is possible: workers are not included in the middle class, but constitute two layers in the general working class. Specialists are included in the next layer of the middle class, because the very concept of "specialist" implies at least a college education. The upper stratum of the middle class is filled mainly by "professionals".

3. Stratification profile

and profile stratification.

Thanks to the four scales of stratification, a sociologist is able to create such analytical models and tools that can be used to explain not only an individual status portrait, but also a collective one, that is, the dynamics and structure of society as a whole. For this, two concepts are proposed that are similar in appearance. But they differ in their internal content, namely the stratification profile and the stratification profile.

Thanks to the stratification profile, it is possible to more deeply consider the problem of status incompatibility. Status incompatibility is a contradiction in the status set of one person, or a contradiction in the status characteristics of one status set of one person. Now we have the right to connect the category of stratification to the explanation of this phenomenon and express status incompatibility in stratification characteristics. If some concepts showed a specific status, for example, a professor and a policeman, go beyond the boundaries of their (middle) class, then status incompatibility can also be interpreted as stratification incompatibility.

Stratification incompatibility causes a feeling of social discomfort, which can turn into frustration, frustration - into dissatisfaction with one's place in society.

The fewer cases of status and stratification incompatibility in a society, the more stable it is.

So, the stratification profile is a graphic expression of the position of individual statuses on four scales of stratification.

It is necessary to distinguish another concept from the stratification profile - the stratification profile. Otherwise, it is called the profile of economic inequality.

The stratification profile is a graphical expression of the percentage of the shares of the upper, middle and lower classes in the country's population.

Conclusion

According to the evolutionary theory of stratification, as culture becomes more complex and develops, a situation occurs in which no individual can master all aspects of social activity, there is a division of labor and specialization of activity. Some activities turn out to be more important, requiring long-term preparation and appropriate remuneration, while others are less important and therefore more massive, easily replaceable.

The concepts of stratification, unlike the Marxist idea of classes and the construction of a classless society, do not postulate social equality, on the contrary, they consider inequality as a natural state of society, therefore strata not only differ in their criteria, but are also placed in a rigid system of subordination of some layers to others, privileged the position of the higher and the subordinate position of the lower. In a dosed form, even the idea of some social contradictions is allowed, which are neutralized by the possibilities of social mobility of the vertical type, i.e. it is assumed that individual talented people can move from the lower strata to the higher strata, as well as vice versa, when inactive people who occupy places in the upper strata of society due to the social status of their parents can go bankrupt and end up in the lowest strata of the social structure.

Thus, the concepts of the social stratum, stratification and social mobility, supplementing the concepts of class and class structure of society, concretize the general idea of the structure of society and help to detail the analysis of social processes within certain economic and socio-political formations.

That is why the study of stratification is one of the most important areas of social anthropology. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, three main objectives of such research can be distinguished: “The first objective is to establish the extent to which class or status systems dominate at the level of society, establishing modes of social action. The second task is to analyze class and status structures and factors that determine the process of class and status formation Lastly, social stratification documents the inequality of conditions, opportunities and incomes, as well as the ways in which groups maintain class or status boundaries.In other words, it raises the question of social closure (clousure) and studies the strategies by which some groups maintain their privileges while others seek to gain access to them.

List of used literature

Avdokushin E.F. International Economic Relations: Textbook - M.: Economist, 2004 - 366 p.

Bulatova A.S. World economy: Textbook - M.: Economist, 2004 - 366 p.

Lomakin V.K. World economy: Textbook for universities. - 2nd ed., revised. and additional – M.: UNITI-DANA, 2001. – 735 p.

Moiseev S.R. International monetary and credit relations: Tutorial. - M.: Publishing house "Business and Service", 2003. - 576 p.

Radjabova Z.K. World Economy: Textbook. 2nd ed., Revised. and additional - M.: INFRA-M, 2002. - 320s.

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Between concepts « social stratification" and " social structure”, so V. Ilyin draws a parallel between concepts « social stratification" and " social inequality". Social

There is a part of the social system that acts as a set of the most stable elements and their connections that ensure the functioning and reproduction of the system. It expresses the objective division of society into classes, layers, pointing to the different position of people in relation to each other. The social structure forms the framework of the social system and largely determines the stability of society and its qualitative characteristics as a social organism.

The concept of stratification (from lat. stratum- layer, layer) denotes the stratification of society, differences in the social status of its members. social stratificationis a system of social inequality, consisting of hierarchically arranged social strata (strata). All people belonging to a particular stratum occupy approximately the same position and have common status characteristics.

Different sociologists explain the causes of social inequality and, consequently, social stratification in different ways. Yes, according to Marxist school of sociology, inequality is based on property relations, the nature, degree and form of ownership of the means of production. According to the functionalists (K. Davis, W. Moore), the distribution of individuals according to social strata depends on the importance of their professional activities and contribution which they contribute by their labor to the achievement of the goals of society. Supporters exchange theories(J. Homans) believe that inequality in society arises due to unequal exchange of results of human activity.

A number of classic sociologists considered the problem of stratification more broadly. For example, M. Weber, in addition to economic (attitude to property and level of income), proposed in addition such criteria as social prestige(inherited and acquired status) and belonging to certain political circles, hence - power, authority and influence.

One of creators P. Sorokin identified three types of stratification structures:

economic(according to the criteria of income and wealth);
political(according to the criteria of influence and power);
professional(according to the criteria of skill, professional skills, successful execution social roles).

Founder structural functionalism T. Parsons proposed three groups of differentiating features:

qualitative characteristics of people that they possess from birth (ethnicity, family ties, gender and age characteristics, personal qualities and abilities);
role characteristics determined by a set of roles performed by an individual in society (education, position, different kinds professional and labor activity);
characteristics due to the possession of material and spiritual values (wealth, property, privileges, the ability to influence and manage other people, etc.).

In modern sociology, it is customary to distinguish the following main social stratification criteria:

income - the amount of cash receipts for a certain period (month, year);
wealth - accumulated income, i.e. the amount of cash or embodied money (in the second case, they act in the form of movable or immovable property);
power - the ability and opportunity to exercise one's will, to exert a decisive influence on the activities of other people with the help of various means(authority, rights, violence, etc.). Power is measured by the number of people it extends to;
education - a set of knowledge, skills and abilities acquired in the learning process. The level of education is measured by the number of years of education;
prestige- public assessment of the attractiveness, significance of a particular profession, position, a certain type of occupation.

Despite the diversity various models social stratification currently existing in sociology, most scientists distinguish three main classes: high, middle and low. At the same time, the share of the upper class in industrialized societies is approximately 5-7%; middle - 60-80% and lower - 13-35%.

In a number of cases, sociologists make a certain division within each class. Thus, the American sociologist W.L. Warner(1898-1970) identified six classes in his famous Yankee City study:

top-top class(representatives of influential and wealthy dynasties with significant resources of power, wealth and prestige);
lower-higher class("new rich" - bankers, politicians who do not have a noble origin and did not have time to create powerful role-playing clans);
upper-middle class(successful businessmen, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scientists, managers, doctors, engineers, journalists, cultural and art figures);
lower-middle class(employees - engineers, clerks, secretaries, employees and other categories, which are commonly called "white collars");
upper-lower class(workers engaged mainly in physical labor);
lower-lower class(poor, unemployed, homeless, foreign workers, declassed elements).

There are other schemes of social stratification. But they all boil down to the following: non-basic classes arise by adding strata and layers that are inside one of the main classes - rich, wealthy and poor.

Thus, social stratification is based on natural and social inequality between people, which is manifested in their social life and is hierarchical. It is sustainably maintained and regulated by various social institutions, is constantly reproduced and modified, which is an important condition for the functioning and development of any society.

Social stratification is a central theme in sociology. It explains social stratification into the poor, the wealthy and the rich.

Looking at the subject of sociology, one can find close connection three fundamental concepts of sociology - social structure, social composition and social stratification. The structure can be expressed through a set of statuses and likened it to empty cells of a honeycomb. It is located, as it were, in a horizontal plane, but is created by the social division of labor. In a primitive society there are few statuses and a low level of division of labor, in a modern society there are many statuses and a high level of organization of the division of labor.

But no matter how many statuses there are, in the social structure they are equal and functionally related to each other. But now we have filled the empty cells with people, each status has turned into a large social group. The totality of statuses gave us a new concept - the social composition of the population. And here the groups are equal to each other, they are also located horizontally. Indeed, in terms of social composition, all men, women,

engineers and others are equal.

However, we know that in real life human inequality plays a huge role. Inequality is the criterion by which we can place some groups above or below others. The social composition turns into social stratification - a set of social strata located in a vertical order, in particular, the poor, the wealthy, the rich.

Social structure arises from the social division of labor, and social stratification arises from the social distribution of the results of labor, i.e., social benefits.

It is always uneven. So there is an arrangement of social strata according to the criterion of unequal access to power, wealth, education and prestige.

Imagine a social space in which vertical and horizontal distances are not equal. P. Sorokin, the man who was the first in the world to give a complete theoretical explanation of the phenomenon, and who confirmed his theory with the help of a huge empirical material stretching throughout human history, thought this way or something like this.

Points in space are social statuses. The distance between the turner and the miller is one, it is horizontal, and the distance between the worker and the master is different, it is vertical. The master is the boss, the worker is the subordinate. They have different social ranks. Although the case can be presented in such a way that the master and worker will be located at an equal distance from each other. This will happen if we consider both of them not as a boss and a subordinate, but only as workers performing different labor functions. But then we will move from the vertical to the horizontal plane.

The inequality of distances between statuses is the main property of stratification. She has four measuring rulers, or coordinate axes. All of them are located vertically and next to each other:

Education,

Prestige.

Income is measured in tenge or dollars that an individual (individual income) or family (family income) receives during a certain period of time, say one month or a year.

Membership in a stratum is measured by subjective and objective indicators:

subjective indicator - a sense of belonging to this group, identification with it;

objective indicators - income, power - education, prestige.

Yes, a big fortune high education, great power and high professional prestige - the necessary conditions so that you can be attributed to the highest stratum of society.

A stratum is a social stratum of people who have objectively similar indicators on four scales of stratification.

The concept of stratification (stratum - layer, facio - I do) came to sociology from geology, where it denotes the vertical arrangement of layers of various rocks. If we make a cut of the earth's crust at a certain distance, it will be found that under the layer of chernozem there is a layer of clay, then sand, etc. Each layer consists of homogeneous elements. So is the stratum - it includes people with the same income, education, power and prestige. There is no stratum that includes highly educated people in positions of power and powerless poor people in unprestigious jobs. The rich are in the same stratum with the rich, and the average with the average.

In sociology, four main types of stratification are known - slavery, castes, estates and classes. The first three characterize closed societies, and the last type - open ones.

A closed society is a society where social movements from the lower strata to the higher strata are either completely prohibited or significantly limited. An open society is a society where movement from one stratum to another is not officially restricted in any way.

Slavery is an economic, social and legal form of enslavement of people, bordering on complete lack of rights and an extreme degree of inequality.

Slavery has historically evolved. There are two forms of it.

Under patriarchal slavery (a primitive form), a slave had all the rights of a junior family member: he lived in the same house with his masters, participated in public life, entered into marriage with the free, inherited the property of the owner. It was forbidden to kill him.

Under classical slavery (the mature form), the slave was finally enslaved: he lived in a separate room, did not participate in anything, did not inherit anything, did not marry and had no family. He was allowed to be killed. He did not own - property, but he himself was considered the property of the owner ("talking tool").

At a mature stage, slavery turns into slavery. When people talk about slavery as a historical type of stratification, they mean its highest stage. Slavery is the only form in history social relations when one person acts as the property of another, and when the lower stratum is deprived of all rights and freedoms. There is no such thing in castes and estates, not to mention classes.

The caste system is not as old as the slave system, and less common. If almost all countries went through slavery, of course, to varying degrees, then castes were found only in India and partly in Africa. India is a classic example of a caste society. It arose on the ruins of the slaveholding in the first centuries of the new era.

A caste is a social group (stratum), membership in which a person owes solely to his birth.

He cannot move from his caste to another during his lifetime. To do this, he needs to be born again. The caste position is fixed by the Hindu religion (now it is clear why castes are not widespread). According to its canons, people live more than one life. Each person falls into the appropriate caste, depending on what his behavior was in a previous life. If bad, then after the next birth he should fall into a lower caste, and vice versa.

Estates precede classes and characterize the feudal societies that existed in Europe from the 4th to the 14th centuries.